JAVS Spring 2013

Features: Rossini’s Viola Solos

Nadia Sirota and Nico Muhly

Performance Practice Issues in Harold in Italy

Tabuteau’s Number System Journal of the American Viola Society Volume 29 Number 1

Journal of the American Viola Society A publication of the American Viola Society Spring 2013 Volume 29 Number 1 Contents p. 3 From the Editor p. 5 From the President p. 7 News & Notes: In Memoriam ~ IVC Host Letter Feature Articles p. 11 A Double-Barreled Rossinian Viola Story: Carlos María Solare discovers two Rossini viola solos during his visit to the 2012 Rossini Opera Festival p. 15 “Meet People and Have a Nice Time”: A Conversation with Nadia Sirota and Nico Muhly: Alexander Overington enjoys good food and conversation with violist Nadia Sirota and composer Nico Muhly p. 25 The Viola in Berlioz’s Harold in Italy : Amanda Wilton, the second-prize winner of the 2012 David Dalton Viola Research Competition, examines performance issues for the solo viola part in Berlioz’s famous symphony p. 33 Forward Motion: Teaching Phrasing using Marcel Tabuteau’s Number System: Joyce Chan, the first-prize winner of the 2012 David Dalton Viola Research Competition, introduces Marcel Tabuteau’s number system and its application to standard viola repertoire Departments p. 39 The Eclectic Violist: A look at the world of a worship violist p. 43 Orchestral Training Forum: Learn essentials of opera performing and auditioning from CarlaMaria Rodrigues p. 51 Retrospective: Tom Tatton revisits viola music by Leo Sowerby and Alvin Etler p. 57 Student Life: Meet three young composers who are “rocking the boat” p. 69 With Viola in Hand: A contingent of Chilean violists share their impressions of IVC 40

p. 73 New Music Reviews p. 79 Recording Reviews

On the Cover: Kevin G. Wong Photographic Sketch of a Dieudonne Viola Composed when Kevin G. Wong was still a viola student at The Juilliard School, Pre College Division, Photographic Sketch of a Dieudonne Viola is an early personal work. Inspired by the velvety quality of the viola’s tonal timbre, he sought to capture the same richness and beauty that he saw in the instrument’s craftsmanship. Kevin is the founder and managing director of Seventhwall, a boutique creative services com pany specializing in photography, post-production services, and digital asset management. For more of the artist’s work, please visit www.seventhwall.com and www.kevingwong.com.

Editor: David M. Bynog Departmental Editors:

The Journal of the American Viola Society is published in spring and fall and as an online-only issue in summer. The American Viola Society was founded for the promotion of viola performance and research. ©2013, American Viola Society ISSN: 0898-5987 JAVS welcomes articles from its readers. Submission deadlines are December 15 for the Spring issue, April 15 for the Summer online issue, and August 15 for the Fall issue. Send submissions to the AVS Editorial Office,

At the Grassroots: Christine Rutledge The Eclectic Violist: David Wallace Fresh Faces: Lembi Veskimets In the Studio: Karen Ritscher New Music: Daniel Sweaney Orchestral Training Forum: Lembi Veskimets Recording Reviews: Carlos María Solare Retrospective: Tom Tatton Student Life: Adam Paul Cordle With Viola in Hand: Ann Roggen Consultant: Dwight Pounds AVS National Board of Directors Officers Nokuthula Ngwenyama, president (2014) Kathryn Steely, president-elect (2014)

Karin Brown, secretary (2014) Michelle Sayles, treasurer (2014) Board Members David M. Bynog (2014) Sally Chisholm (2015) Adam Paul Cordle (2015) Matt Dane (2013) Allyson Dawkins (2015) Hillary Herndon (2015) Michael Kimber (2014) Edward Klorman (2013) Kathryn Plummer (2014) Ann Roggen (2014) Christine Rutledge (2013) George Taylor (2013) Marcus Thompson (2014) Shelly Tramposh (2015) AVS General Manager Madeleine Crouch AVS National Office 14070 Proton Road, Suite 100 Dallas, TX 75244 (972) 233-9107 ext. 204

David M. Bynog dbynog@rice.edu or to Madeleine Crouch, 14070 Proton Rd., Suite 100 Dallas, TX 75244

The JAVS offers print and web advertising for a receptive and influential readership. For advertising rates please contact the AVS National office at info@avsnationaloffice.org

J OuRNAL OF THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETy 2

F ROM THE E DITOR

marveled at the freshness and inge nuity of the music.

explains what an oboist can teach us about musical phrasing using numbers. • Amanda Wilton, the second-prize winner of the 2012 Dalton Competition, offers suggestions on performance practice issues in Harold in Italy , including innova tive placement options for the soloist. • Our Eclectic Violist department looks at worship violists, includ ing an interview with Diana Christine Clemons. • Our Student Life department showcases three composers who use political, religious, and multi cultural themes in their music. • A new department, Retrospective, looks back and reevaluates music by Leo Sowerby and Alvin Etler. • Our With Viola in Hand depart ment revisits IVC 40, from the perspective of several Chilean vio lists who were getting their first taste of a viola congress. I hope that this issue will inspire you to broaden your horizons or perhaps give that piece of music that you abandoned five years ago another go. After all, you don’t move forward by standing still.

These two experiences demonstrate that while some things grab us immediately, other things take time for us to appreciate. Many factors affect our tastes and views, with par ents, teachers, and friends often tak ing a guiding role in developing our preferences, but our tastes are con stantly evolving. Specific experiences may also greatly affect our tastes: a song or movie might be loved because of an association with a momentous event, while a certain bad experience might forever taint a book or food that we might other wise enjoy. In some instances, we only reevaluate our negative opin ions when forced to, and there are some things for which we know we will never gain an appreciation. For many, the viola—and its music—is an acquired taste (in the words of Nico Muhly, “Appreciating a great violist is like saying, ‘That movie has a great sound engineer’”), and our solo repertoire often proves challenging to audiences. So we vio lists are all too familiar with trying to expand people’s tastes. This issue is all about expanding horizons, opening ourselves to new experi ences, and reevaluating existing pref erences. In addition to two articles about the viola in opera and our interview with Muhly and Sirota, this issue offers a diverse range of articles to expand your horizons:

I vividly recall playing my first opera in college. It was Offenbach’s Les con tes d’Hoffmann , a work that seemed long and tedious. The production was plagued with problems, rehearsals were inefficient and demoralizing, and there was plenty of offstage drama to rival the drama onstage. I vowed that if I never had to play another opera, I would be a lucky man. But things improved with the next opera, Le Nozze di Figaro , and by the time we got to Tosca , I was hooked. Having now played nearly three hundred performances of vari ous operas, I am glad I reconsidered my first impression. I also vividly recall listening to the music of Nadia Sirota and Nico Muhly for the first time. I had ordered Nadia’s CD First Things First shortly after its release in 2009 and immediately listened to it upon its arrival. I was captivated both by the playing and the music, particu larly Muhly’s Étude 1A . Three years later, in preparation for our inter view with these two musicians, I revisited the recording and again

Cordially,

David M. Bynog JAVS Editor

• Joyce Chan, the first-prize winner of the 2012 Dalton Competition,

V OLuME 29 NuMBER 1 3

J OuRNAL OF THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETy 4

F ROM THE P RESIDENT

agement system and website. This is a priority. It would allow a more seamless approach and provide you with many perks, including mem bers’ only access to the website, access to premium web content, the ability to update your member infor mation online, the ability to take over conference registration func tions, and other streamlined opera tions for our society. We welcome and need your support in this mod ernization of our operations. We have implemented many things from last year’s strategic plan, includ ing more frequent board meetings. Rather than an annual meeting, we have met quarterly online, and it has improved our efficiency. We are also moving forward with endowment building, also outlined in our strate gic plan, with emphasis on the Dalton Fund. We must think ahead one, five, and ten years so that our organization and its offerings will not only survive but prosper. The next international viola congress will be hosted by the Polish Viola Society September 12–15, 2013, at the Kraków Academy of Music. It promises to be an incredible event! Best wishes to all of you this spring, and I look forward to a great year with viola projects worldwide.

Membership is vital to the ongoing mission of the AVS. If your member ship has recently lapsed, please renew online at http://americanviolasoci ety.org/support-avs/join-avs/. We need you! Invite your friends to join. The board actively pursues member growth and retention, and your help in encouraging friends, students, and all those interested in promoting the viola is much appreciated. Come celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Primrose International Viola Competition! The next competition will be held January 12–17, 2014, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Primrose Festival, which includes the Las Vegas Viola Fest, will be held January 15–17 and will be our c ongress-type event for the year. We are proud to collaborate with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, the Nevada School of the Arts, and the Las Vegas Council of Cultural Affairs. This promises to be a memorable week, and I look forward to seeing all of you there. If you are interested in sponsorship opportunities, please contact me to discuss. We need your support to make this event great! We are in the midst of our first Orchestral Excerpt s Competition. The prizewinners will be announced June 1. Thank you to both our prelimi nary and final jurors for providing such a wonderful opportunity.

Dear Beloved AVS Members, Happy spring! I hope it has been a lovely year for all of you. It was great seeing many of you at this year’s ASTA convention while bringing new members into the fold. It was also lovely cultivating relationships with other organizations and busi nesses. I enjoy letting them know the exciting activities we’ve been up to. Kathryn Steely, focused on contact ing lapsed members. Thank you to D’Addario for their generous offer of string sets for our membership drive. We are proud to announce that eighty-four past members returned, and overall membership has increased by 20% since June 2012! Last fall our membership committee, spearheaded by President-Elect

Most Sincerely, Nokuthula Ngwenyama

We are seeking support to help our organization update its content man

V OLuME 29 NuMBER 1 5

I N M EMORIAM

we were both college students at SuNy Purchase where we both studied with Heidi Castleman. I remember spending part of an afternoon in the dor mitory just listening to her practicing Hindemith’s Der Schwanendreher and marveling that the piece could sound so easy and beautiful. Mary Ruth and violinist Judith Eissenberg (also a Castleman Quartet Program alumna) co-founded the Lydian Quartet and joined the Brandeis university faculty in 1980. The quartet spent decades teaching at Brandeis and during that time built a large discography of both standard repertoire as well as contemporary American works. In 1984 they were awarded the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award. Mary Ruth was made chair of the music department at Brandeis in 2005. In 1977 Mary Ruth became a member of Emmanuel Music, led by Craig Smith. The group was renowned for its complete cycles of Bach’s cantatas as well as chamber music by Debussy, Brahms, Schubert, and Schoenberg. Mary Ruth Ray will be held in the hearts of all she touched with her warm personality and her irre sistibly beautiful viola playing and musicianship.

— Allyson Dawkins, Principal Viola, San Antonio Symphony

Mary Ruth Ray (photo courtesy of Brandeis University Photographer Mike Lovett)

Mary Ruth Ray (1956–2013) On January 29, 2013, esteemed violist Mary Ruth Ray died after a long battle with cancer. I first met Mary Ruth at the Castleman Quartet Program where we were both students. She was a mere teenager, and I was in my early twenties. She became a viola hero to me immediately as I was drawn to her gorgeous dark tone and her impeccably clean technique. Later

V OLuME 29 NuMBER 1 7

J OuRNAL OF THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETy 8

IVC H OST L ETTER

Dear violists and members of the AVS,

As host of the 41st Viola Congress, I would like to invite you to take part in the event from September 11–15, 2013, in Kraków, the most beautiful city in Poland. Plans are still underway, and the event will focus on East-European viola music. Please visit www.amuz.krakow.pl in the coming months for more information. There are ample places to stay near the Music Academy building (św. Tomasza 43 / 43 St. Thomas Street), and here are a few sugges tions: • Campanile Hotel: św. Tomasza 34 / 34 St. Thomas Street; opposite the Music Academy building. www.campanile-cracovie.pl. • Hotel Classic: św. Tomasza 32 / 32 St. Thomas Street; opposite the Music Academy building. www.hotel-classic.pl.

• Hotel Wyspiański: ul. Westerplatte 15 / 15 Westerplatte Street. www.hotel-wyspianski.pl.

• Hotel Amadeus: ul. Mikołajska 20 / 20 Mikolajska Street; behind the Music Academy building. www.hotel-amadeus.pl. • Music Academy, offering sleeping places in a stu dent hostel: ul. Przemyska 3 / 3 Przemyska Street (about 1200 meters from the Music Academy) for $25 uS dollars.

I hope to see you in Kraków.

Bogusława Hubisz-Sielska Music Academy Kraków President of the Polish Viola Society

New AVS Pedagogy Blog: “From the Studio” americanviolasociety.org/studio

The AVS is pleased to announce a new blog devoted to teaching: “From the Studio.” Hosts for the blog’s inaugural season will be the Juilliard viola studio of Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory, Hsin-yun Huang, and Steven Tenenbom. These teachers and their students along with teaching assistants and recent alumni will address issues of technique, repertoire, interpretation, pedagogy, and outreach. Their thoughts, experiences, and discussions on specific topics will appear daily throughout the academic year, Monday through Friday. To submit questions for consideration, please write to Adam Cordle, AVS Media Coordinator, at usviolasociety@gmail.com.

V OLuME 29 NuMBER 1 9

J OuRNAL OF THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETy 10

A D OUBLE -B ARRELED R OSSINIAN V IOLA S TORY

ance, which took place in nearby Ferrara on March 14, 1812. Here it is, as told many years later by Rossini himself to the German composer Ferdinand Hiller: For one opera, Ciro in Babilonia , I had a terrible second soprano. Not only was she ugly beyond belief, but even her voice was well below decency. After a thorough examination I discovered that she possessed only one note that did not sound awful, the B-flat on the third line of the stave. So I wrote an aria for her in which she had to sing just this one note, I put all the musical argument into the orchestral part, and since the piece was liked and applauded, my mono-tonous singer was thrilled by her triumph. 1 In the Italian operatic world of Rossini’s time there were many rules, both written and unwritten, and one of them specified that the seconda donna of a cast was entitled to a solo number. This was always placed in such a way as to provide a few minutes’ rest for the principals, and the audience traditionally used it to sneak out for some refreshment, hence the name aria di sorbetto by which it was usually known. This particular aria in Ciro in Babilonia is accordingly placed toward the end of the opera, just before the title character’s final scene. I knew the piece only by reputation but had never actually heard it performed, so I was particu larly keyed up as the aria approached. The recitative was over, and the orchestra struck up an agreeable ritor nello , scored for strings. And then it happened: after a few bars, a solo viola raised its voice for several bars of serene E-flat-major bliss. I was expecting just about anything at this point, except for a viola solo! Presently the singer came in on her B-flat and did all that could be done with it, with the solo viola continually coming back to comment on the proceedings. Not even when the tutti returned did the viola fall silent: it doubled the first violins at the lower octave, and even had the last word at the aria’s end. (Exs. 1a–1c.)

Gioachino Rossini

by Carlos María Solare

One of my favorite summer spots is the sea resort of Pesaro, on the Adriatic coast of Italy. Not just because of the sea, I hasten to add, but also because every August it hosts the Rossini Opera Festival (ROF) (Rossini, of course, was born there in 1792). Since its inception thirty-three years ago, the ROF has been quietly working its way through Rossini’s output, operatic and otherwise, always performing from the critical editions that emerge regularly from the archives of the Fondazione Rossini, also based in Pesaro. This past August, the ROF presented an opera that had never before been performed there: the biblical blockbuster Ciro in Babilonia , which deals with the defeat and overthrow of the blasphe mous Babylonian king Belshazzar by the Persian ruler, Cyrus. The one thing most Rossinians know about this opera, even if they have never heard a note of it, is an anecdote relating to its first perform

V OLuME 29 NuMBER 1 11

Example 1a. Gioachino Rossini, Ciro in Babilonia , Act II aria, “Chi disprezza gl’infelici” [Argene], viola solo, mm. 4–11.

Example 1b. Gioachino Rossini, Ciro in Babilonia , Act II aria, “Chi disprezza gl’infelici” [Argene], viola solo, mm. 32–37.

Example 1c. Gioachino Rossini, Ciro in Babilonia , Act II aria, “Chi disprezza gl’infelici” [Argene], viola solo, mm. 57–60.

As you can imagine, discovering this aria made my day (or rather my night)! After the opera was over, I hap pened to run into the orchestra’s principal violist out side the Teatro Rossini, and of course I congratulated him on the solo. “you know,” he said, “I have by now played twenty-four Rossini operas, but this is the first time that a solo has come my way.” I wonder what was going through Rossini’s mind; he had a singer who could sing just one note, and he went and framed this one note within—of all things—a viola solo! Could the aria’s text have prompted Rossini for his inspired choice of instrument? It goes like this:

Those who despise the unhappy, Who don’t listen to their laments Heaven often knows how to punish For their unworthy cruelty.

I am not aware if viola jokes were already circulating in 1812, but whether they did or not, there can be few more subtle than this one.

* * *

As fate would have it, the opera that the ROF presented the following evening also had a violistic connotation. you will search in vain the score of Matilde di Shabran looking for a viola solo, but at the first performance, which took place in Rome on February 24, 1821, one was heard, and it must have been something very special.

Chi disprezza gl’infelici, Chi il suo pianto non ascolta Sa punire il Ciel talvolta Dell’indegna crudeltà.

J OuRNAL OF THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETy 12

The opera’s genesis had been fraught with more than its fair share of problems; lack of time forced Rossini to farm out some of the music to his friend Giovanni Pacini, and at the last minute the librettist wanted more money than had been agreed. To make things even worse, the conductor suffered a stroke a few days before the first night. Luckily a replacement was at hand who happened to be a good friend of Rossini’s and also had some experience as a conduc tor from his previous activities at the ducal court of Lucca: Nicolò Paganini.

Misfortunes never come singly, and on the very day of the opera’s premiere, the first horn—for whom Rossini had written an especially challenging solo— was taken ill. Ever game, Paganini undertook this chore as well. Since, however, horn playing wasn’t among his many talents, he performed this passage on the viola. The instrument he used on the occa sion, made by Davide Tecchler in 1742, is kept at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, but I recall seeing it at an exhibition mounted in Pesaro for the bicentennial of Rossini’s birth. unfortunately, the viola version of this solo never made it either into print or into the performance practice of Matilde di Shabran . After Paganini had rescued the premiere and also conducted the two fol lowing performances, the original conductor and horn player showed up again to complete the run. The passage in question consists of an extended instrumental prelude featuring a horn cantilena, after which the solo instrument contributes several interjections during the aria itself (which was vari ously sung by a mezzo-soprano or a bass during the opera’s early history, before settling on the first alter native). The piece is in E-flat major and includes several low B-flats, a whole step below the viola’s C string (ex. 2). I wonder how Paganini solved this: Did he transpose the relevant phrases an octave higher, or modified the melodic shape, or used a scordatura tuning to allow for this note? This we will surely never know, but this aria, as well as the one note number previously mentioned, are well worth the attention of violists wishing to indulge in some Rossinian bel canto in their recitals. And, come to think of it, that B-flat from Ciro in Babilonia should be within the vocal range of most piano accompa nists, too!

Nicolò Paganini

Paganini happened to be in Rome at the time and had indeed spent some of the Carnival nights walking the streets with Rossini, both of them disguised as beggars and singing a mournful ditty of the latter’s authorship in a double act worthy of Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello. An eye-witness recalls that Rossini had filled out his already ample frame with bundles of straw, while Paganini remained “thin as a lath, and, with his face like the head of his fiddle.” 2

V OLuME 29 NuMBER 1 13

Example 2. Gioachino Rossini, Matilde di Shabran , Act II aria, “Ah! Perché, perché la morte” [Edoardo], horn [viola] solo, mm. 4–22. Note the low B-flats.

Notes 1 Ferdinand Hiller, “Plaudereien mit Rossini,” in Aus dem Tonleben unserer Zeit (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1868), 2:41–42. unless otherwise indicated, all translations are by the author. 2 Massimo D’Azeglio, Recollections of Massimo D’Azeglio , trans. Count [Andrea] Maffei (London: Chapman and Hall, 1868), 2:150.

Carlos María Solare is an Argentinian violist, viola d’amore player, and musicologist based in Berlin. He writes regularly for The Strad and Opera magazines and has contributed to MGG (Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart) and Grove Online . His main research fields are the musical theater of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the history of per formance practice of string instruments.

J OuRNAL OF THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETy 14

“M EET P EOPLE & H AVE A N ICE T IME ”: A C ONVERSATION WITH N ADIA S IROTA AND N ICO M UHLY

because I think we both share a lack of really specific capital C, capital A “Career Ambition,” and it’s more like project ambition. NS : yeah, but what I think, with regards to entrepre neurship, is that that’s literally all it is. Like, for me I realized that I would feel successful if my entire life I get to continue to do cool projects with my friends. That is a successful career for me. NM : Right, me too. I think there are a lot of people, particularly soloists, who have in their mind this arc of how their career will look and that there are these points you have to hit along the way. They’re like, “A solo recital at Carnegie Hall,” there’s a “this and a that”—and that that’s something you achieve—like, the getting of the concert itself is the achievement. NS : That works for some people, and good on them—but that mindset implies that there is a them who are the people who run music and they can make you successful and they can approve of you or they can not approve of you, and really it’s all just people—there’s no them; there’s no classical music committee or whatever. NM : And in fact, one of the interesting things about what you and I have learned is there are just “allies,” and that’s kind of all you get. But it operates at the level of the individual. NS : It very much does, and I don’t know if that’s like, [because of ] the Internet or whatever, but I’m very happy with what I get to do right now because it all feels very much like friendship blossoming into everything else.

Nico Muhly performs with Nadia Sirota at a December 7, 2012, concert (photo courtesy of Peter Butler)

by Alexander Overington

At some point in October I received an e-mail from composer Nico Muhly wondering if I would perform as interlocutor for an interview he and violist Nadia Sirota had been asked to submit to “a viola publica tion.” When we gathered on November 14, 2012, to attend our sixth performance (collectively) of Thomas Ades’s The Tempest at the Met, we stopped first for a pre-concert meal at Blue Ribbon Sushi on 58th street, where Nadia promised we’d “eat the whole ocean, slow ly.” Over a few bottles of saki and an almost criminal amount of uni, we discussed careers, commissions, and the viola.

NM : First of all, cheers and thank you.

NS : Cheers!

NM : What we should talk about is entrepreneurship as an idea—because I think this is really interesting,

V OLuME 29 NuMBER 1 15

NM : Right, it’s organic—but the other thing that’s interesting [ waiter comes by ] (sorry that’s sea urchin), the other thing that’s interesting—that at the end of the day, you play the viola.

NS : I can literally sing 100% of the range of my instrument.

NM : And because you were born a violist—

NS : I was not born a violist!

NS : That’s totally true!

NM : Oh, you converted?

NM : Which is kind of amazing because the viola is the, it’s the kind of—

NS : I converted. I started on violin, but I was a real ly bad practicer. To a certain extent, I’m still a bad practicer, it’s just I’m doing so many projects that I have to play all the time, which makes me better. But yeah, I started on violin and switched to viola when I was thirteen, as one— NM : As one does, exactly. And the viola, I think, is a specialty appreciation. Like, appreciating a great violist is like saying, “That movie has a great sound engineer,” do you know what I mean? NM : It’s color—and it’s not considered a solo instru ment in that sense, so if you’re talking about a string part, it’s not like, “yeah, the violist is really holding it together.” NS : Although I really do listen to things from the inside out. I was coaching the [Berio] Piano Sequenza [IV] the other day, and I was like, “The mezzo-forte line really doesn’t have its own voice!” and I thought that it was the strangest thing for me to say. NM : yeah, it’s a very “viola” thing to say. It’s the same thing with singers where it’s like the altos are the ones who actually have to know the thing. NS : Actually, it makes you understand harmony in a very bizarre way because, while I’m still a linear per son and I’m still thinking one thing at a time, I’m thinking of a melodic structure that implies so much. NM : yeah, and when the alto line is given some thing delicious, it’s the most delicious. It’s more deli cious than a big tune. NS : It’s color!

NS : Be careful! you’re like, talking to a lot of violists.

NM : But I mean, you know, it’s a strange—what’s the word? I mean it’s the instrument that has more problems than it does “not problems.”

NS : But I think it loves having problems.

NM : It loves its problems.

NS : It’s a budget opera, you know what I mean?

NM : yeah. Right; it’s a regional theater.

NS : It’s a very creative regional theater!

NM : [ Waiter comes by. ] (Oh my God! That’s the ocean. Thanks very much.)

NS : (Should you just take a picture of this for the article? I want it.)

NM : (Oh my God.) So anyway, one of the reasons why I started writing for the viola is because I knew you would play it. And you know writing for the viola is a tricky business because there’s nothing in terms of range that it can do that another instru ment can’t do. NS : That having been said, it can do all the stuff that you might want either a violin to do or a cello to do. NM : Right, well that’s what’s so interesting—it occupies a strange registral thing. It goes five notes below the violin—

J OuRNAL OF THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETy 16

NS : But we should just say this again—because I’ve said it a lot in interviews—a viola sounds a lot like a woman singing low or a man singing high. Like, it’s that weird wrong size of thing for its body trapped in the wrong thing—which is really good. um, so I started working with Nico mostly because it was well-known that he could write quick things if your recital program was too short. So I asked him to write me something because my recital program was too short. And actually that first thing . . .

NS : Which is exactly right—when you play high on the viola, it sounds higher than it is.

NM : yeah. Just because of the size of the body and the strings and whatever. And so that was an early (for me) exploration of what the viola can do specifi cally, and what is the emotional content of an instru ment that is kind of between sizes and between, um . . . functions. [ Laughs. ] NS : What was also really great about that piece for me was that we had been working together enough at that point that you gave me a lot of freedom in that piece—like, you wrote me lines that I could really— NS : yeah, own. Which has been really great, and I think that has been something that has continued in our collaborations. NM : And also it was a collaboration that included other people—there was Antony, there was also Valgeir [Sigurðsson]—it was one of those things where it stopped being, “Here’s this,” and started being something much more . . . NM : Own.

NM : Was Keep in Touch . No, it was the duet—

NS : The duet was the first real piece—for viola and cello.

NM : Right, which is hard and awkward. The first kind of chunky piece was Keep in Touch (ex. 1), which basically—I was thinking about what to do for the viola and basically it’s sacred music—it’s a big ol’ passacaglia, it’s very church-y, and it pairs—

NS : It’s got a little organ in it.

NM : It’s got a little organ, and it pairs the viola voice with Antony [Hegarty]’s voice—it’s an interesting thing because a lot of people talk about Antony’s voice as if he’s singing in an androgynous sort of range, but actually his singing voice is low—it just sounds high because of what he’s doing with the color.

NS : Well this is something that you’ve done since I’ve known you, which is that you sort of create

Example 1. Nico Muhly, Keep in Touch , mm. 9–33.

V OLuME 29 NuMBER 1 17

these unbelievable embarrassments of fun people who are talented and have interesting things to say. I’m remembering early on with The Elements of Style , which is a project Nico did with Maira Kalman, and like, Isaac Mizrahi, and like, myself, and Abby Fischer and—

NM : Have you played the Walton?

NS : yes, Walton I played freshman year. Anyway, so I started asking for other pieces because I wanted to— NM : And you commissioned a lot of things that weren’t just for solo viola. [ Eats a bite of food .] (Oh, that is der-liscious .)

NM : Sam Amidon! As a banjo player!

NS : It was the most decadent. It was at the New york Public Library, and I remember that gig very much feeling like it was one of those dreams—it was actually Judd Greenstein who said this—where you’re in a very familiar place but with the wrong people, and things just have this bizarre quality. NM : It did feel strange to have that moment when—we were just doing that additive process where Isaac was spanking that Calvin Klein pillow with a shoe stay, and Maira was up imitating you playing the viola, and like— NS : It was the most insane thing that ever hap pened. Anyway, you are talented at getting people together. NM : yeah, and trying to have curatorial instincts I think is the right one. And you know, I think you must have found this as a violist, because there is not as much rep, you have to sort of invent the kind of fun projects that you want. NS : yeah. Part of the reason I play new music is because I was in a weekly studio class for six years— and let’s just say that there is less standard viola rep than violin rep or piano rep or cello rep—and by the end of six years, I really, really knew those pieces, even pieces I hadn’t played myself . . .

NS : (yeah. I’m going to eat another one.)

NM : um, but there’s this sense in which you started inventing the projects you wanted to be involved in.

NS : When I was still in college.

NM : Right.

NS : And actually if I have any advice—whenever people say, “What’s your advice for students,” it real ly is: you have access to really talented people for free all the time; just do tons and tons of projects!

NM : Before they get expensive.

NS : And people will eventually get expensive.

NM : I mean, one of the interesting things about our collaborations is that we work together pretty much four times a month, and yet, it wasn’t until this year that we figured out how to make a concerto happen.

NS : That’s totally true!

NM : Which isn’t happening for two years, which is really crazy.

NS : But we’ve been talking about that abstractly for ever . . .

NM : [ Laughs .] [ Waiter comes by .] (Oh, Monkfish liver!)

NM : yeah, yeah, and I’ve had the opening written since like, 2003. But it’s a funny thing because at school, as you said, it is free, and you can get away with weird stuff . . . And that’s always the advice I give to young composers: “Find the people who will put up with you and who will answer your ques tions.”

NS : (Monkfish liver, here we go.) But what I was going to say is, “Okay, I’m done with this rep.” I actually never played the Bartók Viola Concerto because I had heard it so many times by that point—

J OuRNAL OF THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETy 18

NS : And you were great, though. Nico, 100% when we started working together, was like, “Okay, so explain to me, so you’re tuned in fifths, so each one of your fingers is like a whole step or a half step,” and then he made a ruler with all the strings written on it and physically figured out how to do it.

NS : Exactly. And so ultimately that was the relation ship that we developed where, if something literally, really was not doable, I would have a conversation with Nico about [how] I understood why he wrote that, because it always had some musical function, and [I would suggest] some things I thought might solve that. And sometimes he would pick one of those and sometimes he wouldn’t. And then, you know, there were other things that were like, “This sucks, but I learned it,” and he’s like, “Great!”

NM : yeah, because I was anxious about things being idiomatic, but not too idiomatic.

NS : Nico has a melodic writing style that is often based on fifths—fifth relationships, which can suck for string instruments because fifths are played by the same finger. However, you know what it doesn’t suck as much as? Is like, up-bow staccato. I mean, there are so many things that are hard on the violin, viola, and cello . . . that thing which people are like, “This is not idiomatic,” is still doable. NM : you can make stuff unidiomatic, but it has to come not from an antagonistic relationship between composer and player, it has to come from, “I write something that musically I know needs to be there,” and not asking for it just to be a pain.

NM : Like Étude 1a (ex. 2) is like that—

NS : It sucks, but I totally learned it, and now I can play it and it’s great.

AO : Xenakis talked about complexity and how he tried to write music that was on the verge of the impossible—in the hopes that the performer would then become hyper-involved as a creative problem solver in the piece, which also forces them into more of a compositional role as they try to figure out how idiomatically things are working . . .

Example 2. Nico Muhly, Étude 1a , one measure before figure 90.

V OLuME 29 NuMBER 1 19

NS : you know what’s interesting is that I think that is totally true in Xenakis’s music, though I’m not sure it’s true in Nico’s music, because you never want things to sound . . .

different itinerary through the hardness of it.

NS : My itinerary through that hardness is that there are weird vestiges of my initial climb or slog through it, so there are slides I did that I don’t have to be doing, but I like showing my work, you know what I mean? And sometimes I show my work through that piece, and I think there is definitely a version of that piece—if I were to approach it now, and not when I was twenty-one, like I wonder what . . . NM : you know it’s interesting—I’ve always won dered that if some point we re-record it—should we make a tenth anniversary recording of Keep in Touch ? [ Laughs. ] [ Waiter comes by .] (Oh what is happening? you’re spoiling us with that uni. Where was that caught? Is that Santa Barbara? That is so good. This is gor geous.)

NM : Hard.

NS : Hard. Although there are times in your music where I feel like feeling labor is good, but mostly those things are because I have to like, move up a ninth slowly. But a lot of your music, there are moments where things should feel facile. And actu ally, to watch you play piano is very demonstrative, and to watch you interact with other human beings is very demonstrative—I think a lot of your gestures come from you. NM : Make it look easy is almost the thing. It’s not always, “Make it look easy,” it’s something a little more complicated than that. It’s like knowing how to chop an onion, just knowing how to do it. And then when you’re actually doing it, it’s crazy—it’s crazy that it’s happening, but, you know, it’s a skill that you want to be able to do in a “let’s not show off way.” NS : That is actually the crazy thing about learning hard music that you then have under your fingers. I was playing Daníel Bjarnasson’s piece the other day, and I was like, “Okay, what I’m doing is nuts,” but I don’t even think about it—I don’t think about what this run is anymore. And Keep in Touch is the same thing—there’s some real passagework in there that I don’t, like, think about anymore.

NS : (Take its portrait!)

NM : And that’s great; that’s what you want.

AO : It becomes internalized.

NM : Right, and it doesn’t matter that it’s hard or easy or whatever. And interestingly, as the pieces that Nadia has played are done by other people, like when I hear other people do Keep in Touch , which is so crazy, it’s, you know, sometimes they have a total ly different relationship to the difficulty of it, and sometimes that ends up with a much more like, labored passagework, but also, what’s the word? A

Nadia Sirota with a plate of uni

J OuRNAL OF THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETy 20

NM : (I’m gonna take its portrait. Nadia, this is so you, this little sardine.)

thing else that I do is project oriented. And yMusic is really, really comfortable in a lot of different sce narios, but that’s a fixed group. NM : Right. It’s always the same thing, and it’s a lot of under-loved instruments—or maybe just viola and trumpet. NS : It’s viola and trumpet and also clarinet and flute and violin and cello. But I love that group just because it’s some of my favorite players I have ever worked with in my life, and we’re doing creative things. The thing about yMusic is that in some ways we’re behaving more like a band than a string quar tet. We’re trying to book venues that we can fill, the way bands book venues they think that they can fill, sell the number of tickets you think you can sell, get a guarantee from the presenter and do it in that manner where . . . [ waiter comes by ]. (Oh, fried oys ter! Mmmm.) NM : Right now we’re all in a position to kind of choose how we make money. If you wanted to you could go teach full-time at MSM or whatever and one assumes to get paid that way—but actually, there’s another way to do it that is a little bit more crab-wise—because you lose money on this thing and you gain money on that thing.

So the other sort of key thing that we should hit on which kind of goes back to everything, which is like, how have you branched out? Like you can’t just commission pieces all the time. How have ACME and yMusic figured into your life as a chamber musician? NS : yeah. Exactly. I think it’s a reality if you want to be a violist—unless you have a teaching job or a symphony orchestra position that is basically just really steady work—you have to cobble together a lot of things in order to make that happen. The thing that is most important to me is working with composers and commissioning new works and pre miering those things. So that is my number one— you can’t really make a living doing that—in fact, that has been something that for my entire life prior to like last year actually cost me money, whereas everything else made me money. And you know, you do it because you love it. That’s turning around finally, which is great. But yeah, I teach, I have a radio show, and my chamber music groups are ACME and yMusic. ACME is a new-music ensem ble that is expandable and contractible depending on the project. It is a very project-oriented group itself in a way that really resonates with me because every

NS : Right. It involves a cer tain elasticity of credit, but it really does work. NM : In the model of how bands work, like they lose money on tours but then they make money on festi vals. NS : On the other side of this, the sort of non-profit y side, what’s interesting is that there are those who are really excited by what peo ple are doing to create new music and like, those are people you want to hit up

Members of the musical group yMusic; from left to right: Hideaki Aomori, Clarice Jensen, CJ Camerieri, Nadia Sirota, Alex Sopp, and Rob Moose (photo courtesy of Ilya Nikhamin)

V OLuME 29 NuMBER 1 21

for what really amounts to not very large sums of money. you know, the margins are pretty low, and if you’re not uncomfortable asking people for money then you’re in a reasonable place. There is a general discomfort asking people for money that you just have to get over. People need to give away money, they just need to.

NM : It is a strange path. And you know, Period Instrument (ex. 3) is kind of the first of my Drones pieces. NS : And it’s so great. It also took me probably like, three months to develop a version of that piece that I understood. AO : A lot of your collaborations have been in the studio. How has recording technology influenced your attitude toward composing or performing? NS : It started with “free money,” which comes from these projects Nico was doing in college—maybe doing instrumental music for a play or something like that where he would just call me to Looking Glass [Studio] and be like, “So check it out,” and write on a piece of manuscript paper the note C and

AO : When you write for Nadia, how much of what you’re writing is informed by your relationship with her?

NM : Almost all of it. But, you know, at this point there are new directions to be explored that I can start on my own. The third étude is a whole new idea, rhythmically for me . . .

NS : And it’s weird—I like embarking on these strange paths.

Example 3. Nico Muhly, Period Instrument , mm. 24–47.

J OuRNAL OF THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETy 22

then like, seven different variations and say like, “Start on beat two and play your phone number,” or whatever (ex. 4). There were a lot of games. NM : On the spot games. It is sort of like clapping games or word games where it’s best done—I have a very strong belief with musicians’ ability to impro vise within a structure. And then when I had Abby Fischer in the studio, I was like, “Okay, now say everywhere you ever lived,” you know, then that will have emotional content, whereas if she had thought about what she was going to say, that wouldn’t have worked. That piece turned into Mothertongue . Example 4. An example of “free money” music by Nico Muhly

big-budget string quartet is identical to the language they would use in the concert hall; the performance style doesn’t necessarily change because the whole idea on classical recordings is to replicate the experi ence of the concert hall. But when you have a sensi tive condenser mic all up in your face, picking up all of your burps and stuff, it’s like putting a magnifying glass on your sound and suggests a different way of playing. NS : Keep in Touch was the first time I was ever mic’d that closely—and I had no idea. I didn’t know that it was going to sound like that, and actually the first time I ever heard Valgeir’s recording of Keep in Touch that ended up being on Nico’s record, I was like, “I sound terrible!” I was so freaked out at the concept of me being mic’d that closely—I had no idea. NS : It was basically in my viola. That was an incredibly freeing moment for me. I listened to that recording maybe seven or eight times and was like, “you know what’s amazing?” What you can hear . It was really similar to my experience of actually play ing it—from my perspective. And that’s not some thing that other people have access to. Being some body who is somewhat of an expressive breather, for example—that’s not something you’d get necessarily in a concert hall, but really you do when you’re amplified. I now play close amplified a lot, and that’s definitely changed a lot of the way I play in a lot of respects. When we talk about recording-stu dio fluency, it’s also just knowing how to make sure you have edits covered—stuff like that, so you can really be a helpful person to your engineer. On this last record I just recorded, it had nothing to do with the way that a string quartet might be recorded. Hey, I think we should stop this because it’s getting kind of loud in here. NM : It wasn’t just close . . . NM : And that’s the crazy thing. Keep in Touch must have been the first time—

NS : Right. If you were like, “Homework assign ment: think of everywhere you’ve ever lived and then sing it to me on notes,”—you don’t want that. NM : you’ve developed a gradual, as we all have, flu ency in the language of the studio, which is entirely different from the language of the concert hall and entirely different from the language of the practice room.

NS : And not something I learned in school at all.

NM : Okay! What else is there—yeah, stay in school—

AO : But the language of the recording studio for a

V OLuME 29 NuMBER 1 23

NS : Just meet people and have a nice time.

Group, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Paris Opéra Ballet, The Royal Ballet, and the Seattle Symphony. Muhly has also lent his skills as performer, arranger, and conductor to Antony and the Johnsons, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Doveman, Grizzly Bear, Jónsi of the band Sigur Rós, and Usher. Nadia Sirota, “A stellar young violist who has served as muse to prominent composers” (The New york Times) , is best known for her singular sound and expressive exe cution, coaxing solo works from the likes of Nico Muhly, Daníel Bjarnason, Judd Greenstein, Marcos Balter, and Missy Mazzoli. Her debut album First Things First was released in 2009 on New Amsterdam Records and named a record of the year by The New york Times , and her sophomore album, Baroque , will be released in March on Bedroom Community and New Amsterdam. Nadia also hosts a radio show on WQXR’s New Music radio stream, Q2Music, for which she was awarded the 2010 ASCAP Deems Taylor Award in Radio and Internet Broadcasting. She received her undergraduate and master degrees from the Juilliard School and since 2007 has been on faculty at the Manhattan School of Music in their Contemporary Performance Program.

NM : Okay, bye.

Nico Muhly’s viola compositions can be heard on Nadia Sirota’s album First Things First (New Amsterdam, 2009), Nico Muhly’s album Drones (Bedroom Community HVALUR16, 2012), and Nadia’s new album Baroque (Bedroom Community HVALUR17, 2013). Sheet music can be purchased from G. Schirmer/ Chester Novello http://www.chesternovello.com/default.aspx?TabId=243 1&State_2905=2&composerId_2905=3071 Alexander Overington is a composer and producer spe cializing in a genre-bending approach to recorded music. A native of New York City, he holds dual degrees from Oberlin Conservatory of Music and is on the fac ulty of Composition and Music Technology at California State Summer School for the Arts at CalArts. Nico Muhly has composed a wide scope of work for ensembles, soloists, and organizations including the American Ballet Theater, American Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Chicago Symphony, Hilary Hahn, Gotham Chamber Opera, Music-Theatre

J OuRNAL OF THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETy 24 Nadia Sirota performs with Nico Muhly at a December 7, 2012, concert (photo courtesy of Peter Butler)

T HE V IOLA IN B ERLIOZ ’ S H AROLD IN I TALY

After acquiring a Stradivarius viola, Nicolò Paganini asked Berlioz to write a viola work for him to play. Berlioz attempted to combine this request with his new concept for a viola solo with an orchestral accompaniment, which would be written in a way as to “leave the orchestra full freedom of action.” 2 The new approach resulted in a work that was closer to the symphonic genre than that of the viola concerto Paganini was expecting. According to Berlioz, when the violinist saw how little the soloist had to play, he abandoned the project. 3 Free to do as he liked, Berlioz carried out this new idea of a symphonic depiction of scenes of Italy with the isolated, Romantic wanderer Harold as a solo viola. While the unique genre of Harold in Italy raises many performance practice issues, this article will focus only on those associated with performing the viola solo and how these issues are important for a historically informed performance. Discussion will focus on the placement of the soloist in relation to the orchestra, as well as who played the solo part dur ing Berlioz’s lifetime and who typically plays it today; stylistic concerns in relation to the solo part and an examination of the role of the viola as a solo instru ment in the nineteenth century; and the performance of the viola solo with piano, either the transcription by Franz Liszt or the piano reduction by Hugh Macdonald in the New Berlioz Edition . Finally, this article will explore the performance of the “Paganini version,” an optional passage in the first movement published in the New Berlioz Edition and recorded by violist David Aaron Carpenter. By looking at these issues, as well as modern conventions, violists inter ested in performing this work will gain a historic per spective on these performance issues.

Hector Berlioz

by AmandaWilton

Hector Berlioz’s Harold in Italy depicts Byron’s anti hero Harold imprisoned in a life of Romantic isola tion. While Berlioz did not explicitly use Byron’s epic-length poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage as a program for the work, he referenced the title charac ter in order to draw a connection between the liter ary work and his own identification with the “melancholy dreamer” in the music. 1 Berlioz chose the viola to embody the title character Harold not only because of the instrument’s distinctive melan choly sound, but also because the cultural identity associated with the viola and viola players of the nineteenth century ideally personified the character of Harold as distant, isolated, neglected, and the outsider of the orchestra.

Placement of the Soloist

Harold in Italy is scarcely unknown or obsolete in the symphonic repertoire. In Berlioz’s time it was

V OLuME 29 NuMBER 1 25